Weeks 1-2: January 17-January 24, 2008
CCP 213
Joseph Hollcraft. M.A.
HOMEWORK:
*** reflecting upon the readings for week 2 and more specifically the Senses of Scripture, respond to the following question: How does the Literal Sense and Spiritual Sense aid in the formation of holiness? You may consider the Moral sense as a starting point. God Bless your week!
I. Divine Revelation Itself . God reveals his goodness and wisdom so that we might come to know the mystery of his will and have access to the Father. Divine sonship and sharers of divine nature is the end goal of all revelation (2 Peter 1:4). Paul contends that our knowledge can rise to knowledge of God's power and divinity by reflecting upon the created world (Rom.1.20… consider subsequent verses ). In order for us to properly understand how God reveals himself, we must first consider the manner in which reason serves faith and vice versa.See Word of the Week on Revelation and Wisdom.
A. Faith and Reason : “Two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of Truth” (John Paul II). Reason must always set itself upon some sort of faith. The rationale of Science (Scientia L.: meaning “knowledge of order and beauty”) concludes this in its fiduciary principle—all science is faith-based. What does Science mean by this?
1. Reason (Science) places its trust from a previous experiment that is built upon a previous set of credentials that is built upon a series of journal, etc…faith is necessary if reason (science) is to exist. So why are science and religion opposed? Simply, we have replaced faith with experience and concluded that there is a higher authority in experience as opposed to faith…although, as we have now seen, all science is tied to some aspect of trust.
a. Logic is an instrument of reason. What is logic? As defined by Dr. Hahn in Reasons to Believe: “Logic is simply a reflection of how the mind structures its thought, which is itself a reflection of the structure of reality” (Hahn, 19). If a person wishes to disprove logic, the individual runs into a wall because they have to do so in a logical manner.
b. Logic allows us to move from the material to immaterial and visible to the invisible…ultimately from faith to reason and reason back to faith. This is characteristically human.
1. Letters represent sounds, which in turn become words representing things all around us. We are mathematicians from adolescence and yet they produce immaterial things. Scientists who want to disprove God use numbers all the time!
2. Proof of the immaterial can lead one to conclude that God is just an “impersonal force”. God is more than magnets, engines, and telescopes (these things are a means to an end). God is relationship and we can discern this because we are a reflection and image of him (Gn.1:26)--in relationship with one another.
2. Relationality: born into communion relationship. Living in communion with another demands our attention to conscience (with knowledge—the true meaning of science—the science of morality). For in the breach or awareness humans are aware of some higher demand enjoined upon them for justice and common decency.
a. Consider the employer treating his employees “like dogs”, and the boyfriend that treats his girlfriend as a “sex object”, and the Nazis treating the Jews and priests like “animals”…these are examples of some sense of what is right and wrong.
b. The moral life is not something added on to real life from the outside. It is life lived by human beings. We live in the gap of the person we are against the person we ought to be. Revelation of truth ought to encourage as oppose to discourage.
c. Moral theology is determined by the intention, object and circumstance. We are called to generalize, reflect and discern to understand the proper choice. Discernment is the call as human beings to appropriate the things around us, and this should open our eyes to the Revelation of truth and love. Atheism is a moral problem before it is an intellectual problem!
B. Economy of revelation is realized by words and deeds: a marriage made in heaven! The words, for their part, proclaim the works, which ultimately bring to light the mystery they contain (DV, I, 2).
1. Christ is the Word, who proclaims his works and reveals himself who is mystery. He is the sum total of revelation (DV, I, 2).
a. God provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities. Furthermore, after the fall, God gave man hope, with the promise of salvation (cf. Gn.3.15); and he has never ceased in taking care of his family. “God writes the world like men writes stories, to convey truth and love” --Hahn
2. Consider the covenants made with Abraham, Moses, and David. These covenants are ratified by the one definitive covenant in Christ. These are the essential stages of revelation
a. To understand “The divine program and economy for the salvation of humanity” (Irenaeus) it is necessary to note the special characteristics of his covenants with the biblical heroes.
3-fold covenant
Adam-Gen 2.23 Noah-Gen. 9.13 Abraham-Gn. 15 Moses-Ex.20 David-2 Sam.7.10 Christ-Mk
marital household tribal Gn. 17 national kingdom (rules nations) Universal
Marriage Rainbow Circumcision Gn. 22 Passover Throne Baptism/Eucharist
C. Man's response to God. 1. To paraphrase St. Augustine from his rudimentary work on catechesis: “The Church wants the whole world to hear the summons to salvation, so that through the hearing of Sacred Scripture we might come to believe, through belief we may hope, and through hope we may come to love.” This is the ultimate progression of the theological virtues realized in light of Sacred Scripture. Moreover, it is the standard for compliance to revelation captured in one simple sentence.
1. By faith, man completely submits his intellect and will. With his whole being, man gives his assent of faith to God. Man's response to God is good theology: “faith seeking understanding”. So Sacred Scripture calls the human response to God, the author of all revelation, “the obedience of faith” (cf. Rom.1.5; 16.26)…the loved seeking the lover…the child seeking out how he is a reflection of his father's face!
a. See Word of the Week on Faith .
2. To obey in faith is to submit freely to the word of God that has been heard, because God, who is Truth itself, guarantees its truth. Both Abraham and the Blessed Virgin Mary are models of this heroic yes.
a. St. Paul tells us that the obedience of faith brings about a greater holiness. In addition, holiness is the mover and shaker in our contemporary culture.
II. Transmission of Divine Revelation. God desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of all things. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations so that the revelation of truth reaches the ends of the earth. God graciously arranged that the things he has once revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain in their entirety, throughout the ages, and in turn be transmitted to all generations (DV 7). What Christ entrusted to the Apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns to Glory. There are two distinct modes of transmission.
A. “Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single deposit of Faith” (DV 10), in which, the pilgrim church contemplates God the source of all her riches. This ‘Deposit' is the treasure and heritage of our faith. Aroused and sustained in the Spirit of Truth, the People of God, guided by the teaching authority of the Church (magisterium) are drawn into the deeper mystery that is the will of the Father. There is an original unity between the Word of God, the sacramental life and the order of the Church and her authority. The age of the Church and her Deposit of faith is the constant echo of the people of God coming into encounter with the Word of God.
1. Sacred Scripture : The speech of God put down in writing by the breath of the Holy Spirit (see Roman numeral III…notes below).
2. Sacred Tradition : Divine truths orally transmitted to the apostolic successors under the guidance of the spirit (note the conclusion of the Gospel of John).
a. Tradition lives in conversation with the past making it visible to the present; the continuation through time of the mission of Christ which shares his passionate love for all cultures. Tradition is a divine intervention where God makes present Christ the same to us today as he was 2000 years ago; that every generation shall have intimate contact with him—Eucharist. “ Tradition is the principle that links one generation with another; it enables them to remain with their parents… Tradition is memory, and memory enriches experience…”--Congar
b. Tradition comes before Scripture. Scriptures did not start the Church, but comes from the spirit of the Church in the guidance of the spirit. The Scriptures do not prelude the Church but rather proceeds from the Church. It is like Americans before the constitution not the Scriptures before the church. Anything else would be a pseudo understanding of the Church. There is a growth and change yet a preservation of identity. An outward change yet an absolute identity (consider the acorn). Analogy of a living organism.
c. Magisterium: Serving and interpreting the written and oral word of God under the guidance of the Pope and bishops. (Pope as head-when bishops reject the Pope it is like the apostles rejecting Jesus). “ It is both the anchor and compass, depending on the turbulence of the sea.”—Neuhaus. The Magisterium has an intimate role with the necessity to understand Divine Revelation: God revealing Himself through salvation history to His people.
a. The Magisterium is the continual (breath of Tradition) conversation with the past. It assures the “faith once delivered to the saints” bringing more treasures to the D eposit of Faith. It transmits all that the Church is and believes.
b. There are different levels of truth revealed in and through tradition that are defined by the Magisterium. The role of the Magisterium defining matters of truth is analogous to the unborn baby that is not yet seen. At first the truth may not be seen, like the baby. There is a gestation period of truth before it can be fully seen…like the baby. It is the Spirit of Truth over a period of time that defines the timing of the definition of truth.
1. Discipline : a practical dictate by the church, which clearly can be changed i.e., fasting.
2. Doctrine: Teaching pertaining to the faith in which the magisterial has officially taught, and has yet to be dogmatically proclaimed. L.G. # 25 the faithful are bound in their profession of faith to accept it as true.
3. Dogma: Highest revelation of truth. Pius XII: “Perfection of doctrine.” A truth immediately revealed by God, which has been proposed by the teaching church as such, the greatest appreciation of truth.
B. The Authority of Mystery. The Church lives in dialogue with the Word that reveals God's saving plan in history and obedience to the Word as its seeks out the accomplishment of Gods work in the life of man and in the age of the Church. There is a modern crisis of faith because we do not understand the need to consider mystery.
1. The problem with today's science is that we read Scripture with an absence of a proper working hermeneutic. We have modernized how to research. God has revealed himself in history and Scriptures has been the vehicle that communicates this revelation. It is then necessary to consider the key historical context and literary form to grasp its full meaning.
1. We do not remove the original “habitat” from any research…consider any professional zoologist.
2. Hermeneutic of Faith. To study a religious text and to not consider its religious meaning has failed. In addition, the failure to consider the rise and development in Sacred Scriptures through the practices of the Church's liturgy proves the use of Scriptures as a dead artifact…faith itself is a science in that it is a legitimate source of inquiry and knowledge.
a. This in turn opens the door to how the literal sense opens the door to the spiritual sense. Because when you apply a proper construct of research faith is seen for, what it is…that mysterious yes that transcends all realties… There needs to be attentiveness to the history of spiritual realities verses the history of an objective idea (see notes below on the senses).
b. faith in Christ is a word and because this word lives inside of us, it must be every expression of our life.
4. The Church as memory. The memory of Christ's saving actions, preserved in the written testimony of Sacred Scriptures and renewed in the sacramental life. The Church is constantly bearing witness to Christ's saving power in her sacraments.
III. Sacred Scripture. All of Sacred Scripture is but one book, a book of God's covenant love for his people. This book is the Word, which is Christ (cf. Jn.1.1) and all Scripture is fulfilled in Christ (CCC 101-102).
A. Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture. Sacred Scriptures contain the Word of God and, because they are inspired, they are truly the Word of God.
1. God is the author of Sacred Scripture because he inspired its human authors, he acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving truth (DV, 11).
a. God's word is objective truth, for it created the world and its hosts and breathed inspiration into Scripture (cf. Ps.33.6). So Scripture's authority is an extension of Christ's own authority. “Just as Christ is fully human and divine so Scripture is fully human and divine.”
--Hahn2. Interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Interpretation of the inspired Scripture must be attentive above all to what God wants to share through the sacred authors for our salvation. What comes from the Spirit is not fully understood except by the Spirit's action. There is a kind of historical structure of faith. In this manner of speaking, the Church considers both history and spirit, as it's mode of interpreting Sacred Scripture.
a. We call these the Literal sense and Spiritual Sense, the latter being divided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical. These senses of Scripture communicate the richness of the text. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “The internal unity of the Bible as a rule of interpretation, Christ as the meeting point of all the OT pathways”. In principle, this is how one goes about to a clear understanding of the NT and its spiritual sense. There are three modes of the spiritual sense.
1. Literal Sense: Intent of the author. Meaning conveyed by the word of Scripture through cultural and historical contexts. All other senses are based on the literal. Not more important but it is a matter of priority by sequence.
b. Spiritual Sense: Unity of God's plan speaking about the realities of the events as being signs. You have to ask the question: “Did God intend to mean this?” The spiritual sense is interpreting Scripture in the context of the Paschal mystery, bringing into view the spiritual depth of the historical event.
1. Allegorical (typological ): Christ significant/paschal mystery. Things of the old law signifying things of the new law in persons, places, things and institutions (cf. 1 Peter 3.14; Rom.5.14). Jesus and the Sacred Scripture of Israel appear as indivisible. The mission of Christ in the New Testament corresponds directly to the prophetic thrust of the Old Testament--Christ's mission links the two The Old and New!
a. Typology is the study of likeness; the interpretation of signs, symbols, and persons that foreshadow Christ in the Old Testament. Typology reveals the two testaments as the one single drama/episode with Christ at its centerpiece. To understand scripture we must always interpret OT and NT as the whole revelation of God. God's testament of love to mankind. You cannot have one without the other!
1. “The faith of Christ is concealed in the Old Testament, lay hidden under shadowy symbols. Scriptures are living in only as far as they point to Christ”
--St. Thomas Aquinas2. “The Old Testament is hidden in the New Testament and the New Testament reveals the Old Testament.”
-- St. Augustine2. Moral : instruction to act with justice…wisdom. Types of what we ought to do. Along with the allegorical, there are times when the New Testament text itself is a moral exegesis of the Old Testament.
3. Anagogical : this word comes from the Gk. Anagoge , which literally means “future.” Viewing realities with eternal significance. The Church is the heavenly Jerusalem .
2. Canon of Scripture. It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned (Council of Hippo, 395 A.D.) which writings are to be included in the list of Sacred books.
a. This list was determined by what books were in particular sanctioned for public worship…again, the scriptures were ordered to the Mass.
b. The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament.
1. The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God's plan in salvation history. This is the unity discovered in the four senses of Scripture (in particular typology).